Saltation
Funny Pearls
I have an opinion and you have an opinion and both opinions clash but friends and family can have different opinions, it shouldn’t matter right, everyone is entitled to an opinion even if the other thinks the other is wrong and we raise our voices and laugh aggravated knowing full well the opinion we don’t agree with is insane, but it really is special we can differ and carry on with normal stuff, like when the conversation turns to what a fantastic show Severance is and hey, did you see the documentary Ben and Amy Stiller made on their parents Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller, we can talk about that sort of stuff, we know it’s important to stay on trend with the culture and after watching the doc, we agree how sometimes people keep opinions to themselves, stuffed way down so the boat doesn’t rock too much and hey, what do our opinions matter anyway, if we were on a cruise ship and spit our opinions into a bottle and threw our two cents overboard, not a ripple, not a minute ripple would our opinions make as our two bottles sail in search of a beach to float ashore where a Minnow might pop our tops and laugh as our opinions leap and jump in search of someone to cut them short, wave them away until a beauty queen or maybe a skipper grabs both and says, hey we can drink banana juice out of these and suddenly, two opinions are dumped out on their own until the country girl ties the silenced Os in search of an opinion poll around her pony tails where sometimes the two whisper her ears with opposing points of view and she listens because opinions are vital to a free society and who wants a world where opinion is squashed like the time she wanted to build a welcome wagon for others shipwrecked on the island and everyone laughed and jeered and told her to catch the next raft to Kansas because the rest of them would push that boat right back in the water, right back, this is our island and we aren’t taking in boarders crossing our border lost at sea or otherwise and later, the professor would tell her, she was right but he couldn’t speak up, couldn’t support her opinion because that millionaire couple bought his silence with a crate of coffee that washed ashore at the same time the first mate went missing.
Saltation - the action and process of leaping and jumping - appeared in Funny Pearls here June 2019. Thank you, editors.
A bit of backstory. An edit was made to the original piece to reflect a then current UK political issue rather than the mention of an American president as reportedly, readers across the pond simply stopped reading upon any reference to his name.
Thank you for reading.
I eat lunch with Harry in the park and bring up the Super Bowl. ‘Damn Patriots. And damn Brady. I swear he’s made a deal with the devil. Seriously, the guy never ages.’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Uh. You hate the Patriots.’
He waves me off. ‘No really. I can’t say.’
‘Why not?’
Harry looks around and lowers his voice. ‘Lately, seems every time I voice an opinion, someone jumps down my throat.’
‘Not me.’
He shakes his head. ‘Even the most asinine stuff sets people off. Watch.’ He lifts his ham on rye and clears his throat. ‘I think Duke’s mayonnaise is the best mayo on the planet!’
Five people gallop across the park and jump down his throat.
He burps. ‘See?’
I hand him a napkin. ‘You’re not kidding.’
‘That’s nothing.’ He stands on the bench and megaphones his voice loud and clear. ‘All women should stay home and raise kids!’
Twenty women within ear shot high jump down his esophagus, the first pushing a baby buggy and the last, spiked heels first. ‘Chauvinist,’ she spits, tweaking his uvula on the down slide.
‘Wow, that’s crazy. What about politics?’ I lean in and whisper. ‘What about Brexit?’
I watch two skydivers hit the ground running.
Harry pulls a muzzle from his backpack and straps up the new leather tight. ‘I can’t stomach the thought,’ he mumbles, and braces for the onslaught.
Twenty women within ear shot high jump down his esophagus... haha!